Carlos Lopez By Carlos Lopez

Food & Hospitality · European Union

EU Allergen Rules for Restaurants: Regulation 1169/2011 Explained

Unlike the US, where a restaurant menu falls outside federal allergen labeling law, the EU's FIC Regulation makes allergen disclosure mandatory for restaurant food too — the open question is only whether your country requires it in writing.

The Rule That Actually Covers Restaurants

Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers (the FIC Regulation) entered into application on 13 December 2014. Its Article 44 does something the US FALCPA framework does not: it extends mandatory allergen disclosure to non-prepacked food — meaning food offered for sale without prepackaging, including in restaurants, cafés, and mass catering, not just packaged retail products. If any of the 14 allergens listed in Annex II is present in a dish, the food business operator must make that information available to the consumer. This is a real, binding EU-wide obligation, not a voluntary best practice.

The Part That Actually Varies by Country: Written vs. Verbal

Here's the detail that trips up a lot of cross-border restaurant groups: Article 44(2) leaves the specific means of providing this information — and its exact form and presentation — up to each Member State. The Regulation itself does not mandate that allergen information must appear in writing on the menu; some Member States permit verbal communication by staff, provided the information given is accurate and, in many implementations, backed by an accessible written record staff can refer to. Other Member States have gone further and adopted stricter national measures requiring the information in writing at the point of order. Spain, for example, has historically leaned toward requiring written allergen information available to the consumer, either in the menu itself or in a supporting document staff can produce on request.

Practical takeaway: don't assume the EU-wide baseline is enough — check your specific Member State's national implementing measure before deciding whether verbal disclosure through trained staff is sufficient, or whether you need it printed.

The 14 Allergens

Cereals containing gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, tree nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphur dioxide and sulphites above 10mg/kg or 10mg/litre, lupin, and molluscs — the same 14-allergen list that underlies the UK's Natasha's Law, since both derive from the same EU-origin framework.

Enforcement Is Real, Not Theoretical

Failure to comply with allergen information obligations can expose a food business operator to administrative sanctions and, in serious cases involving harm to a consumer, criminal prosecution — this is not limited to a warning letter. Inspectors typically check whether the information provided is accurate against the actual recipe used in the kitchen, not just whether a document exists.

Building a Compliant System

  1. Confirm your specific Member State's implementing rule on written vs. verbal allergen disclosure before designing your system.
  2. Build a master allergen matrix covering every dish and every one of the 14 allergens, kept current against your actual recipes and suppliers.
  3. If relying on verbal disclosure, train every server thoroughly and keep the written backup document available for staff reference and inspection.
  4. Update the matrix immediately on any recipe or supplier change — this is the most common way a restaurant's allergen information quietly goes stale.
  5. Treat a customer's allergen query as requiring an answer sourced from the matrix, not from a server's memory of what "usually" goes into a dish.

Our Allergen Menu Labeling Generator can build this matrix from your actual ingredient lists.

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